Welcome to the first installment of our training blog!! We are training to run the 113th running of the Boston Marathon on April 20th, 2009 with the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC)!! This year will be the 20th running of the Boston Marathon for DFMC. Since 1990, the DFMC has raised over $38 million dollars for the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Cancer Research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. All of the funds raised go directly to funding basic research in cancer at the Dana Farber. We all feel really fortunate to have been selected to join the DFMC Team and are looking forward to the up coming months of training and fundraising with our new teammates. Mike, Sharon and Heidi are new to the DFMC experience. This will be the first marathon for Mike and Heidi. Sharon has run 4, including last years Boston Marathon. Along with her previous teams, Christine has raised ~ $50K for DFMC, so we’re counting on her to keep us on the right track as we spread the word about supporting this important cause. Mike’s fundraising is off to a great start, with over $500 collected so far. The rest of us are getting things rolling around now and chances are if you’re reading this you’ve received one of our letters or e-mails. Thanks for checking out our blog and for supporting our efforts!

Recently, the Team Donahue DFMC newbies ran 7 miles in the pouring rain along with other first time members of the team! Starting in January we will have training runs nearly every weekend and will be updating the blog with our experiences and some fun stats! Please come back and visit us periodically over the next several months for updates and to track all the miles we run in training (it will be more than 1000 miles!)

BAA Half Marathon Crew

We have been keeping in shape this fall by running several half marathons. Heidi, Sharon and Christine ran the Maine Coast Half marathon for women. Catherine Switzer, the first women to run the Boston Marathon and winner of two New York Marathons, was there and called out our names as we finished. Heidi and Sharon had great runs that day, Heidi’s finish time was a personal best! Christine lagged behind, challenged by a stuffy nose! In the beginning of October all four of us ran in the BAA Boston Half Marathon along with a bunch of friends. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time during the run! Mike beat us all literally by more than a mile, finishing in a blistering 1 hour and 43 minutes! Christine and Sharon each had personal bests that day. In November, we ran the Smutty Nose seacoast half marathon, not the best day for the group but the weather and the scenery were beautiful and the Donahue family came out to cheer us on!

One of the “training runs” for a few of us will be the Miami Marathon and Half Marathon in January. Heidi plans on running the half marathon, while Christine and Sharon will be running the full 26.2. We’ll keep you posted on how that goes as well.

Sharon and Christine had one of their first doses of “winter” training yesterday. While out on the Minuteman Trail at 6:30 a.m. putting in an 18 miler (that’s 30,000 steps for any Adnexans who may be reading this) the hose to Sharon’s water supply froze solid! Clearly a new product concept needs to be pitched to Camelbak – insulation!



We look forward to sharing more stories of our training adventures over the next several months. Till then take care and we will see you out on the road!!


Cheers all – Team Donahue.